The Protector (5 page)

She arched a brow, and he thought he saw a glimpse of
laughter in her eyes. “Very well,” she agreed. “Dinner is out of the question, Zola.”

Jazz winced noticeably. “Jazz,” he said.

“But Zola fits you so well,” she mocked.

She might look supercilious and aloof, but there was a mischievous streak to her that fascinated him. It didn’t go with the image she projected during the interview.

“I’m Zola only to family and very intimate friends, Miss Verreau,” he countered gravely.

The laughing eyes gleamed at his unspoken challenge. “So, if I go out to dinner with you, does that qualify me as an intimate friend?” She pulled out a set of keys from her purse. “So easy?”

He smiled, leaned down, and opened the car door for the women. He waited till Rose had gotten in the backseat before saying softly, “You’ll just have to find out for yourself.”

Miss Verreau’s expressive eyes narrowed a fraction. “I’m not as easy as you, Lieutenant,” she said, as she climbed into the car. Jazz closed the door, and she leaned out of the window. “You’ll find that your uniform isn’t going to get anywhere with me.”

She was as cool as those film noir chicks, a combination of fire and ice that never ceased to capture their victims. Jazz could almost hear the music in the background, the slow, sensuous rhythm of a deep bass that echoed the web of intrigue being laid out.

“I can be out of uniform in seconds,” he promised, putting both hands on the roof of the small car so he could bend down closer.

Her forefingers tapped the steering wheel. “How many ways do I have to say no before you understand that I’m not going out with you?”

Her change of demeanor was just as challenging as the mischief that had been in her eyes a few moments earlier. There were layers to her that Jazz wished to explore. He lived in a world where time and decisions changed in a heartbeat; he was trained to go after what he wanted.

Jazz grinned. “There is no such word in French when it comes to a romantic dinner.”

“Oh? Now our dinner has progressed to something more. Really fast, Lieutenant. A girl likes to savor the chase a little bit.”

He would love to savor her, but he didn’t say that. Not having talked to Hawk about the team’s new plans, he doubted that he would really be able to take her out to dinner anyway.

She arched her brow again, cocking her head to one side. “It’s getting hotter out here. Are you going to get in the car or do you intend to hold this conversation all day in the sun?”

He must be losing his touch. The lady had easily evaded his questions without much effort at all. He still didn’t know a damn thing about her. Straightening, he moved to the other side of the car and got in. He adjusted the seat back as far as it could go, squeezing his long length into the vehicle. Her eyes glinted at him before she turned her attention to starting the engine and pulling out into the traffic.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

She looked into the rearview mirror. “I have to drop Rose off,” she told him quietly.

“No, no, Vivi! No want to go home,” Rose said, her voice agitated, leaning forward between the two front seats. “No take me home.”

Vivi. Her name was Vivi. Jazz repeated it silently. It suited her. She gave him a brief glance, as if it were his fault for bringing up the subject.

“Rose, I don’t know where else to take you,” she said slowly, as if she was weighing her answer carefully. “You don’t have any other relatives, and the orphanages won’t take you in because they know you have parents. Do you have any friends who can help you?”

Rose shook her head. “No. You can take me?”

The hope in her voice was heartbreaking, and Jazz wished he could offer her a place to stay. Seeing that she had almost
been sold as a prostitute, he had a fair idea that her parents didn’t care one way or another where she was. He looked at the woman driving beside him.

Vivi Verreau was chewing on her lower lip. There was grimness to her profile as she stared ahead. The knuckles of her hands on the steering wheel were white as she made a turn. So much tension suddenly. He wondered at the strength of this woman’s emotions.

“I can’t take you,” she said, and Jazz could hear the tightness in her words, as if saying them was choking her. “I’m sorry, Rose.”

Rose’s lower lip trembled. “Vivi, I so scared.”

“I know you are. I’ll think of something.”

“You promise?”

“I…promise.”

Jazz caught the slight hesitation in Vivi’s reply. She gave him a brief glance before he said anything.

“No more questions for now, Lieutenant.”

In a back room in town

“I don’t want any young girls,” Stefan said. “I want you.”

Without any greeting, she came to him with greedy hands and lips, stripping him where he stood. He knew that she was a woman who liked control, who enjoyed being in power. He drew in a breath when she raked her fingernails down his stomach suggestively and tugged on the buttons of his pants.

She reached inside and drew him out. Still without a word, she went on her knees and wrapped her eager mouth around him, tasting him as he stood there in the dark room. She finally made a throaty approving murmur as he grew big and hard, filling her. Giving him one final lick, she released him and worked at taking his pants off.

Naked, he followed her to the bed in the corner and pushed her down on the soft mattress. She licked her lips as he put on a condom, opening her legs invitingly. The bed
creaked as he climbed on top, scooping her legs up with his arms and parting her thighs wider and higher. Without preliminaries, he was inside her. He knew she would already be wet, and he didn’t wait as he took her hard and fast. She gasped at his roughness, and then started purring, becoming more agitated, as he pushed her legs higher over his shoulders without losing a beat.

He moved his hand between them, stimulating her as he slid in and out. He watched as she gave a final shriek before succumbing to pleasure, wetting his hand with her essence. He didn’t stop. The plan was to satisfy her for an hour, put her in a good mood.

She moaned softly. “No, no more, please,
s’il vous plait
.”

He ignored her. It was part of their little game. She liked it rough and demanded it. She pushed against him, struggling, telling him over and over, “No, no…stop.”

He stopped. Slapped her lightly. There was a moment of silence, and then she laughed and raked her hand down his chest. Then she screamed again as he pounded relentlessly into her. He didn’t stop again, no matter how much she begged. He was a master to her slave, fulfilling that fantasy she wanted. Taking her over the edge one final time, he let himself go with a grunt before collapsing on top of her, his body slippery with a sheen of perspiration. She ran her hands up and down his sides, massaging him.

“Hmmm…you never disappoint me,” she said, flicking her wet hair from her face.

“I don’t intend to,” he said, turning his face from her shoulder.

“I love your taking me so roughly. It’s very liberating.”

“Those are two contradictory sentences.”

She shrugged. “I don’t care. I like it.”

“Obviously,” he said, a dry note creeping into his voice. “You also make sure your girls know that.”

Her laughter echoed in the dark room. “Oh yes, of course. I make sure they’re in the next room listening to the best lover a girl could have. They must have me for inspiration.”

“If I didn’t know you, Lis, I would call you cruel.” He turned sideways, resting his head on a crooked elbow.

She turned, licked his chest and bit it. “And you are soooo sweet.” She languidly rose to a sitting position, playing with her hair. She turned and studied his naked form. “Don’t you know I see you giving some of my girls cash for nothing?”

“Don’t forget where the money comes from,” he reminded her. “Even a sweet man has to have a means to make money.”

“Oh yes. We’re two of a kind then, aren’t we?” she said as she stood up. “Come on, lover, give me the information you have and I’ll see what I can do.”

As she reached for a robe hanging by the bed, he pulled on one of her hands and she flew into his arms again. His hand went between her legs.

“Ooooh,” she moaned, then kissed him hungrily. “If you’re ever in trouble, you
have
to come to me,
cherie
. I’ll take you underground with my brothers. Then I can have you for a long, long time.”

“You sure they will let me in at your word?” he mocked, as his hand continued its leisurely exploration.

She arched to meet each caress, her eyes half closed. “Honey doll, I’m the favorite sister to the second brother. Do you think he would deny me a favor?” She mewed as his rhythm slowed, controlling her release. “Oh, please, please.”

“Don’t you mean, ‘No, no, stop’?” he mimicked her earlier cries. He slid a long finger in her and felt her tensing, anticipating what he could give her. “So, whatever big sis says, little brother will do, huh?”

She didn’t have a chance to answer. Her moans filled the room again.

Finally, after several minutes, she opened her eyes. Her voice was hoarse from the pleasure he had given her. “Honey doll, as long as you keep doing that, you’ll always be under my protection. And, don’t forget, you’re smart and can make us money.”

He bent down to kiss her bow-shaped lips. “And don’t forget,” he added, “I can make you come some more.”

He was running late, and there was business to be done, but he had found that one couldn’t hurry business in this part of the world. One must make a lot of deals. Without warning he turned and locked the woman’s hands above her head. Her eyes widened, and a sultry gleam crept in them when he slowly nudged her thighs apart.

“Some more?” she asked.

“It’s part of the deal,” he said, and bit her shoulder to mark her.

Jazz was a Cajun boy, brought up in the bayou
swamps outside Slidell, Louisiana. His grandfather was an alligator catcher the locals called The Raging Cajun, and as a kid, Jazz lived his summers in the deep swamp camps where the very poor eked out a living off the land, supplemented by selling alligator teeth and chicken claw mojos in the local markets.

Since joining the SEALs, he had seen other kinds of slums. The garbage mountain city in Manila where the children dug through trash for food. The slums in Hong Kong where people lived like sardines, arranging bed shifts according to their work schedules. The arid lives of people who owned nothing but a piece of Persian carpet spread in a hand-hewn mountain side cave outside Kabul. He had seen them and had compared the lives of the people with his own childhood. He had grown up in a large, loving family, with a mother who had fiercely protected her brood, and a rascally grandfather who told tall tales and refused to live a normal life. Poverty had never bothered him, since he had been taught to take care of himself and his family. He could do anything.

And being a SEAL reinforced that pride. Except that his deployment overseas and what he had seen was eating at his
soul bit by bit, and sometimes he thought he would go a little crazy. He had learned that there were other kinds of poverty in the world, some more horrific than others. Most of the time, he did his job with his SEAL brothers and left quickly. If the team stayed longer, he usually ended up giving most of his cash away. That was why Hawk always joked about his needing to marry every poor girl he’d helped and sending her home to Louisiana.

Jazz looked at the tin huts in the small shantytown Vivi was driving through. People peered out of windows and men stopped whatever they were doing to stare at the vehicle passing by. The ride was bumpy and slowed down by carts and livestock haphazardly blocking their way. They finally stopped in the middle of the dirt path. Children raced over and climbed onto the vehicle, swarming like ants, peering inside at the occupants curiously. They were dirty and bedraggled. Some of them yelled out to Rose.

“Is it safe for you to be out of the vehicle?” Jazz asked. He had experienced the vicious kiddie pickpockets in Rome before.

“I think I can take of myself. What about you?” Vivi didn’t wait for his answer, climbing out of the car. She pulled the lever to move her seat forward. “Rose?”

The girl gave Jazz a pleading look, then obeyed Vivi’s request. The moment she was outside, the kids started talking to her all at once. She shrugged at them, pushing away some of them rudely. Vivi slammed the door shut.

Jazz opened his and climbed out. He attracted even more attention. Young girls started appearing from nowhere, surrounding him. He looked at Vivi, who stared in contempt.

“It’s the uniform, Lieutenant,” she informed him in a clipped voice.

He frowned. “What’s wrong with my uniform?”

A girl slipped her hand into his. “GI want girl? GI take me out?”

Vivi cocked her head. “Need more explanation?” She turned away, leaving him with the crowd of young women.

Jazz gently unlaced the girl’s hand from his, shaking his head. “No, thank you,” he told her. She pouted at his reply. He began going after Vivi and Rose, even as the bolder girls kept touching him.

When he caught up with them, Vivi darted him a scathing glance. “Maybe you can marry one of them and take her home to your maman.”

“You sound like Hawk,” Jazz commented as he unhooked another hand from his belt.

“I hope not,” she retorted. “I wouldn’t want to be compared to a bunch of drunk soldiers telling each other whom to marry.”

“You don’t just dislike uniforms, do you?” Jazz asked quizzically. “It’s the men, too.”

She rubbed her pale pink lips together. “My opinion is formed by observation and experience. Soldiers use their weapons too freely and frequently.” She slanted a downward gaze below his belt and added, “And they destroy everything.”

So his French film noir heroine had an acid tongue. No wonder he had the feeling all along that she wasn’t on his side.

“That’s what soldiers do,” he agreed. He had always believed that one couldn’t win an argument by taking the opposite side immediately. “Are you one of those who believe that there will be no wars if there weren’t soldiers?”

Vivi and Rose came to a halt outside one of the huts. The younger girl had been dragging her feet, growing more and more reluctant as they went nearer. The broken wooden door leading into the house was open, and shouts were coming from inside.

“Soldiers count their success by their number of kills, Jazz. I don’t think they care whether there’s war or not, just where the next battle is to add to the count,” Vivi murmured softly as she gazed at the entrance to the hut. “And in between kills, they enjoy the spoils.”

She spoke so softly that he must have imagined she called him Jazz. He would have liked to be given a chance to an
swer the charges she had just made, but the shouting from within the hut didn’t seem conducive to further debate. He stepped closer, not liking the tone of voice as it went on and on, almost shrill in its demands.

“What’s the shouting about?” he asked.

“Money,” Vivi said, and tapped at the old battered door.

There was a pause and then a short little man, no taller than five-feet-one, appeared. Unkempt, with a cigarette hanging from his lips, he stood with his hands on his hips. His eyes narrowed at the sight of Rose standing behind Vivi. He began to speak quickly, angrily, the cigarette dropping ash. Vivi shrugged. His face turned beet-red. He ground out the cigarette and started gesturing wildly as he shouted, his words in broken English.

“I have no interest in your income, Mr. Tham,” Vivi finally interrupted. “You refused the food the organization brought here for distribution.”

“Food? Who wants your food?” the man sneered, his speech slurred by accent and alcohol. “We want cash, American dollar. You bring food! Gimme money and we be fine.”

“You’ll be fine, Mr. Tham, but what about your family? I think they’d be happier with food than you gambling and losing all the money.”

The man looked as if he was going to explode in fury. He started yelling at Rose in his native tongue, gesturing her to get into the house.

Jazz looked at Vivi. Was she really going to let Rose go? The younger girl cast a quick last glance at Vivi, who nodded to her. Rose disappeared into the dark interior.

Vivi held up an envelope, took out a small wad of cash, and fanned it out in front of Mr. Tham. The change in the man was instantaneous. A smile broke out, showing yellowed teeth. His eyes lost their glare, gleaming now with anticipation.

“Let me make this very clear,” Vivi said in a soft voice. “This is not U.S. government money. This is my cash. I expect Rose to be here for a few weeks or you’ll answer to me.”

Mr. Tham’s eyes narrowed. “Woman don’t threaten man,” he announced.

“I wouldn’t dream of threatening a man like you,” Vivi said, arching a brow. “This is purely business. If you don’t want to do it, I can always negotiate with some of your neighbors for their daughters.”

The man scowled and tried to snatch the money away from Vivi. She kept it out of his reach. “Three weeks, Mr. Tham,” she pressed.

“Three,” he agreed, small eyes following Vivi as she put away the cash.

No sooner had Vivi handed him the envelope than he turned his back to them, pulling out the money to count. He began walking back into the house.

Jazz watched Vivi’s expression closely. She was clenching her jaw as she stared stonily at the empty doorway. He felt helpless, not knowing how exactly to help.

“Why negotiate with a man like that?” he asked gently.

The gaze she shot him was heated. “All I can do is buy more time,” she said, and turned back toward the path. The kids followed them.

The girls continued to touch Jazz wherever they could. He unhooked a hand from his back pocket. “Is he her father?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to beat him up?”

Vivi stopped and turned around slowly. She stood there as the girls crowded around him, still hopeful that he would change his mind. One of them said something, and the rest giggled loudly. Jazz didn’t want to guess what they were talking about so animatedly.

“Do you think anything would be accomplished if you beat him up?” Vivi asked conversationally. She arched her brows as Jazz disentangled himself from a pair of arms around his waist. “Look at them hanging on to you like leeches. Are you going to beat them up?”

“I don’t hit women.” He was, however, beginning to
weary of these girls, who didn’t seem to want to take no for an answer. He wanted to get out of here soon.

“You see, that’s all very good and proper,” she said, “but what are you going to do about the situation?”

He frowned at her. “Not sure what you mean.”

“Well, soldier, what’s the favorite hot phrase these days—think outside the box.” Vivi stopped just in front of him. “You can’t hit them. So do you run off and ignore the situation? That’s what all the soldiers they’ve met have done, you know. They all took off.”

His frown deepened. “Not the same thing,” he said, shaking off someone patting his butt. “I’m not taking off that way. I don’t even know them.”

“They don’t know that. They think you’re just like the others. They believe one of them will get you sooner or later, and then you will give her money, establish the same pattern of existence she’s seen a dozen times.”

Jazz stared back into her dark eyes, trying to read her thoughts. She was so angry. Or frustrated. For some reason, she was testing him, or goading him to do something. Fine. Think outside the box. She obviously thought all military men were alike, that they were a group that had established some sort of destructive pattern when it came to women. He looked around at the eager eyes and hands, and wondered which came first—the temptation of money from the men or the temptation of willing flesh from the women. But like many times before, he shook off the need to philosophize too much. In his profession, it was best not to think too deeply.

Right now, he wished to make a point. His eyes met Vivi’s mocking ones again. Being a SEAL, he had been trained to think outside the box before the stupid phrase ever existed. His gaze never leaving hers, he pulled out from inside his collar the chain with the pendant his maman had given him. Her eyes narrowed as she watched him take it off, then widened as he stepped closer to her. She didn’t move as he slipped the chain over her head, the look in her eyes turning
mysterious, like dark chocolate, full of sensual promise. His maman’s pendant slipped inside her blouse.

Jazz slid his arm around Vivi’s shoulders and curled her unresisting body against his. He grinned cheerfully at the girls who were watching the entire scene. “Mine. Number one girl,” he declared, and turned to kiss the top of Vivi’s head. He murmured into her hair, sniffing appreciatively at her perfume. “Let’s go, shall we,
chouchou
? I bought me some time too.”

Now if he could buy some time to understand Vivi Verreau’s anger. For some reason, he felt compelled to know more about this woman.

Vivi glared at the girls hanging on to Lieutenant Zeringue, buzzing around him like flies. It upset her. It was an irrational irritation because she understood why they were the way they were. Yet the idea of them and Jazz together made her want to go to each one of the girls and shove her out of the way.

It couldn’t have been that long ago, could it? Not to Vivi’s mind, which was spinning with angry voices and hushed whispers. Not to her heart, which was thudding painfully at every step she took back to the car.

She had touched a soldier like that once. He had the smile of someone who knew about life. He descended into her village like one of the ancient Asian demigods, bearing good tidings for everyone. And she had touched his sleeve for good luck. She remembered that one time when he turned to look at her, that big smile, and the piece of chocolate he had offered.

But of course, as the years went by, she had grown to understand why there were so many orphans like her around. Abandoned by family. Outcasts. No one wanted half-breeds in the family—too obvious where they came from. Her mouth twisted. There were more enterprising families, of course. Females could be a commodity.

Vivi recaptured her childhood every time she drove into
this kind of neighborhood. It wasn’t pleasant, a constant reminder of how she could have turned out. The tangy smell of food and trash. Burning incense from the outside altars permeated the air. The clucking of hens as they moved among the humans. The sight and sounds of days gone by when she was at that desperate stage between fear and trepidation. The fear that she would be trussed out alone in the world with no income. The trepidation from knowing what she had to do to survive.

Vivi didn’t want to be here. She felt out of place, unwelcome.

She blamed her bad mood on the frustrating day. She was edgy from her inability to find a solution for Rose. Then she had challenged Juliana Kohl, knowing very well it was going to come back to bite her ass. But her instructions from GEM were specific. She pursed her lips as she darted a quick glance at Jazz again. He was too busy peeling another one of the girls off him.

Jazz’s offer to beat up Rose’s father gave her an opening to vent her frustration. He was so smart, wasn’t he? Just beat up the guys at the bar, give the girl enough money for a couple of nights in the room, and all would be well. Just beat up the father, then life would be blue skies and sunshine. So she had goaded him, questioning his ability to act beyond violence.

What he did next silenced all her inner rage. She could feel his pendant hot and intimate in the valley between her breasts. When he put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her own body against his, it caught her off guard. Then he nuzzled her hair, his breath blowing warmly where he gave her a kiss near her forehead. Through the rush of blood in her head, she heard him call her an endearment.

Had she said there were choices? All alternatives narrowed down to a puddle of female hormones in those five seconds. She had been very conscious of the man’s sexual charisma since arguing with him at the bar, had even taken the steps to create a shield of dislike against him. She hadn’t been wrong about her instincts. The man was dangerous to a
woman’s self-preservation, with those sleepy baby blues and that lazy Louisiana drawl. She’d made a mistake coming up so close; now he’d put his arm around her and like one of these girls, she wanted to slip her hand under that shirt, tuck her fingers into those pants, explore the hard body she had seen that morning. Check out and affirm those girls’ lewd observations to one another.
Yeah, baby, he was as big as he was tall.